Many of the mobile phones recently on the market are provided with the function of locking the phone so as not to accept key operations by others. The lock of the mobile phone is not released unless a right password is input. However, the password is often a combination of a plurality of numbers, and if someone repeatedly tries the combination of numbers, the one the same as the password may be obtained. Once the lock of the mobile phone is released by another person, the mobile phone may be used by the other person without the owner of the phone knowing it, and the information stored in the mobile phone may be revealed to the other person.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-288124 (Patent Document 1) discloses an information processing apparatus which uses a password for authentication of the user of a vehicle, and picks up an image of the user based on the authentication result of the password. The information processing apparatus described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-288124 is capable of picking up an image of the user who input a wrong password. However, if the user knows that the image is to be picked up, the user may input the password without entering into the image pickup range, in which case the image obtained will not include the figure of the user. Therefore, the user may be able to try a plurality of passwords without his/her image picked up, to finally find out the authentic password.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-288124